Your work is going to fill a large part of your life. - Issue #1
“You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle…👊
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs ✍️
I bought the macbook pro, ipad, desk in 2012. 1 year after my launch of my startup creative design agency & my clothing line. With this i made some money to pay my bills, buy softwares, cover my startup expenses. Sales was good selling digital goods like logos, posters, websites and merchandises. 😎
In the recent article i read online: 👉http://www.jonloomer.com/2016/05/27/11-lessons/ About struggles of entrepreneurship. They are many areas to discuss and is really tiring to talk about it. But one thing for sure, everyone wants to be successful at what they are doing but they challenge here today is more than that.
And in another recent article i read about: https://crmrkt.com/J9dxRRenting a studio or other alternatives. I started out as a freelance graphic designer with just adobe photoshop 3.0 and microsoft paint back in the days year 2005. From a windows user to mac user. How time pass by so fast, technology and creative market have changed rapidly. I spent alot of time doing social media before facebook started. I spent alot of time with the community back in Myspace from all over the world and people who shared many creative ideas everywhere. For some reason i didn’t graduate from any art/design school or university to learn how to understand programming html/css. I was a self-taught, i like what i see and i learn it online. Resources of learning is everywhere on internet, is a whole new level of universe. Then i decided to quit my job as a security guard and started to focus on what i love.
👌 Everything that happens helps you grow, even if it’s hard to see right now.
I spent many hours exploring and trying out every day. It took me more than 5 years to understand graphic design, 5 years to understand web development. Along the way, i pick up many skills on how to do video editing, build communities, backpacking & traveling, create a startup business, marketing, accounting, crowdsourcing, self-help and so much more. There were many sleepless nights of insomnia and i always run out of money and got really broke. Many things in my life happened for so many reasons that is filled with wisdom. I didn’t graduate well from school, i’m a very lazy person and i hate studying. All i want is to try something new every day, go out and play! But as i grow older, i started to learn more and more.
✊ I work harder because i need to run my small business back at my home. I needed money to pay my bills, buy my groceries and at times i will travel. The money i earn is just enough for me to do small things in many great ways but from time to time my dreams grow bigger and i wanted to achieve more things and so the cost got higher and higher. I really want to focus on building my new creative ideas and i’m not smart in handling in finance. Is one of my weakness and is the skill that i have not mastered. I like money but i don’t like how to handle it because i don’t find it fun to handle the money or where the source of money come from. I like the idea of just having money in my wallet or bank whenever i need it for my daily needs, paying bills and at times i use it for traveling.
I created my first personal site on self-hosting WordPress, learn to install themes, plugins, back up on MySQL, tables on PHPMyAdmin & learn some basic PHP coding. So much to learn on tutorials. I was on Envato Marketplace & Creative Marketplace and bought some digital products to develop. 💼
Looking back all these years of my experience i wanted to take my work to the next level. It requires a handful of people who are skilled and at the same time, i can grow together with them as a team. So i can provide better services and create more amazing stuffs. My dream is to build a creative agency studio for my team. Is hard to be a co-founder to manage many things, i need to hire people and do what needs to be done from client work and many more. Money have become one of problem issue that i see in my situation. All i can do now is just to continue build what i believe and also that one day will come. The day that i will be earning much more profit for my studio and shop. I have to work harder. Is not going to be easy but i will do my very best.
🤯 Stop chasing acceptance. Stop chasing approval. Stop being such a follower. Stop being so insecure. Stop overthinking. Stay Focus, Be Real. Be You.
🤑 Sometimes i just don’t know how people make a good price list for the clients or the service to provide. Because some clients think my products & services must be cheap and easy to do but is not. But my work is time-consuming and i have cost to cover. At times if i charge a higher price they say i’m over-charging. I just don’t get it sometimes running business like this. At times i just don’t understand how other creative design agency could hire so many employees and have a beautiful team and still they can charge thousands of dollars and still sustain their company. I just don’t get it and understand. I really hope in time to come i can understand more so i can do my job better, grow my business and bring more food to the table for my family. I mean, have my family now but i want to have my own family and my dream is also to have a wife who can understand what i’m doing. I’m already 30 years old and i felt like i’m 24 years old. or maybe i look like 24 years old. I don’t know, there is so many things in life you just don’t know and don’t understand. So keep looking and don’t settle until you love what you do!
Originally published at www.fajarsiddiq.com on July 18, 2016.